New to kegging - My questions

[keelanfish]

I really appreciate the feedback I've gotten on other questions on this forum. The links provided have been very helpful and I'm starting to get my head wrapped around kegging my homebrew. I've got a keezer in the works and so far have four used pin lock 5-gal cornies and just ordered a new 2.5 gallon ball lock corny. I'm pretty stoked about moving to kegging, but have a couple of process questions I'd like to get feedback on before keggin my first batch. I'm planning to as much as possible, to do closed system transfers. I'm totally comfortable with cleaning the kegs and replacing parts, etc.

From what I've read, the best way to sanitize and purge the O2 out of the keg is to fill with starsan, seal the keg, then push starsan out with CO2. I know that a little starsan film or bubbles isn't a big deal. My kegs have straight dip tubes, and for the life of me I just can't imagine that pushing the starsan out with CO2 won't leave a puddle of sanitizer sitting in the bottom. Am I worrying about nothing, or does anyone have any suggestions for how to remove as much starsan as possible while still maintaining an O2 free environment.

Second quesiton...once I have these cleaned, sanitized, purged kegs with a little pressure on them to keep the seal, what is the process of doing a closed system transfer? I ferment in a half barrel Sankey with one of those nice tri-clover, gasketed, stainless steel converters for fermenting. I can push with CO2 to initiate a siphon and am comfortable to that point. Should I hook the siphon tubing to the liquid side pin lock and fill from that side? What's the best way to vent on the other side?

[Quin]

On the closed transfer: Liquid to liquid, gas to gas, with a tee on the gas side hooked up to your bottle like this:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10527#p100439

[Bugeater]

Should I hook the siphon tubing to the liquid side pin lock and fill from that side? What's the best way to vent on the other side?

Hooking the tube to the liquid side is the way to go. For venting, just open the relief valve. If your lid doesn't have one, hook up a picnic tap to the gas side and open it up. CO2 forced out by the inflowing beer will keep any oxygen from getting in. When beer starts spewing out the valve/picnic tap you know transfer is pretty much done.

The closed system shown in the link works fine, but is overkill and way too much work for me.

Wayne

[EagleDude]

Should I hook the siphon tubing to the liquid side pin lock and fill from that side? What's the best way to vent on the other side?

Hooking the tube to the liquid side is the way to go. For venting, just open the relief valve. If your lid doesn't have one, hook up a picnic tap to the gas side and open it up. CO2 forced out by the inflowing beer will keep any oxygen from getting in. When beer starts spewing out the valve/picnic tap you know transfer is pretty much done.

The closed system shown in the link works fine, but is overkill and way too much work for me.

Wayne

For a closed transfer of a 10 gallon fermentor to 2 5-gallon cornies, I place a the keg on a scale. Once the keg reaches ~49 lbs, I know it is at 5 gallons and time to fill the second corny. Bonus to using weight vs spewing is that you don't end up with beer at the gas in tube, so no chance of getting beer into your gas lines ... and of course no beer lost.

[keelanfish]

Thanks for the feedback. I think I've got the transfer understood now. Should I worry about the amount of sanitizer left in the bottom when purging out with CO2, or not?

[Bugeater]

Thanks for the feedback. I think I've got the transfer understood now. Should I worry about the amount of sanitizer left in the bottom when purging out with CO2, or not?

If you are using Star San the answer is no worry.

Wayne

[ajdelange]

To get the last bit of sanitizer out just make sure there is some CO2 pressure on the tank and then invert it so that the sanitizeer pools on the lid over (i.e. on the inside as the tank is upside down) the pressure relief valve. Then crack the pressure relief and the gas will blow the last of the sanitizer out.

To counter pressure fill, make a filling device. To do this obtain a plumbing tee and attach a short hose with gas connector to one leg, a needle valve to another and a pressure gaugue to the third (http://www.pbase.com/agamid/image/122950815). Pressurize the target keg to a bit over the pressure in the source keg. Connect the filling device to the gas line on the target and open the needle valve to bleed the target down to a pressure just below that in the source keg. If the pressure in the target is way high you can open the pressure relief valve for faster bleed. When the pressure in the target is 1 or 2 psig below that in the source as indicated by the pressure gauge on the filling device connect the liquid line. Adjust the needle valve to keep the gas pressure in the target just below that in the source. You can close the needle valve just after connecting the liquid line to see how high the pressure rises in the target. Then open it to keep the pressure jsut a bit below this thus setting up a slow flow with minimal foaming. Plave the target on a scale to determine how much beer has flowed in. When full the keg will contain 19L of beer which will weigh about 19 kg. Another method for checking fill level is to just place your hand on the side of the keg. When there is nothing but CO2 on the other side of the keg the metal will warm to your touch but when the beer reaches your hand it will cool the metal and you will feel it.

[keelanfish]

Okay, I'm picking up the majority of the kegging equipment tonight. Very excited! One further question (at least for now), I've ordered a 10 lb CO2 tank without really thinking about why. Just figured 10 is the middle common size (5,10, 20). For a 6 tap keggerator using 5 gallon corny kegs, force carbing with a dual body regulator, and miscelaneous CO2 purgings and transfers, is a 10 lb tank a good starting point? I plan to add a second tank to have on hand as a backup as soon as I can afford to and could either go up or down in size then depending on feedback.